Friday, October 24, 2008
IAS officer absconding for 8 years gets fresh posting
Hyderabad: Bureaucratic circles are agog over the sudden resurfacing of an IAS officer who has been absent without leave (AWOL) for almost a decade and as to how he managed a posting after that. Subhrendu Bhattacharya, an IAS officer of the 1976 batch, was among the 26 officers who were given new postings.
After being AWOL for about eight years, Bhattacharya was posted as commissioner of inquiries in the general administration department (GAD). Subhrendu first went on casual leave when he was posted as the MD of APIDC on August 1, 2000. He did not report for duty even after the expiry of the leave. Later, Mohammed Shaffiquzzaman, another IAS officer, succeeded him. Three months later, GAD wrote to Shafiquzzaman to report on Subhrendu’s whereabouts. “When the GAD is unaware of his whereabouts, how could it expect me to know,” Shafiquzzaman was said to have written back. It was common knowledge in the bureaucratic circles that Subhrendu was employed in the US.
The question that is being raised is that how can an all India services officer who was literally absconding for eight years be forgiven and given a posting. According to sources, Subhrendu informed the state about his absence only once in his eight years of absence. “When the media speculated as to whether he was alive or dead, he wrote to them last year stating that he was very much alive,” said one official.
The GAD maintains that there was nothing wrong in his posting. “An inquiry is on regarding his long absence without permission,” said a senior GAD official. Sources told TOI that orders for reinstating Subhrendu came from the highest quarters. How Subhrendu was able to convince the powers that be remains a mystery. The officer himself could not be contacted. Some of his colleagues said that he is in his hometown in Uttar Pradesh. They also revealed that the officer who had landed in India a couple of months ago was lobbying secretly so that he would be allowed to join back. On being asked the possible reason for the official to come back , one official said: “He has three years of service left. If he serves for that period he will get full retirement benefits.”
Interesting Facts
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create explosion that is equal to an atomic bomb.
To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs - it will let you go instantly.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
Every continent begins and ends in the same letter.
Every continent has a city called Rome.
Two thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
Right handed people live on average nine years longer than left handed people do.
The sentence ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ uses every letter in the English language.
No president of the United States was an only child.
TYPEWRITER is one of the longest words that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
A snail can sleep for 3 years.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
China has more English speakers than the United States.
An average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it.
An average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night.
CROWNING CORRUPTION: PROMOTION TO IAS SMACKS OF MANIPULATION
If the judgment of the Supreme Court of India delivered on 04 August 2006 is not wrongly read, it would make it crystal clear that, the last promotion to Indian Administrative Service (IAS) from Orissa Administrative Service (OAS) cadre was guided not by principles in force but by extraneous considerations.
It is astonishing that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who has shown uncommon agility in dropping any of his ministers on allegation of corruption, is yet to act against the corrupt coterie with the help of which the illegally promoted persons are still drawing the salary they are not entitled to and still enjoying the status they are not qualified for.
I do not think that Naveen Patnaik had any personal role in the promotion that has now been stamped as illegal finally by Supreme Court. But when the State does not rise in right response to observations of the Judiciary to correct the wrong it has perpetrated, he being the holder of the portfolio, who should explain the position?
Let us look at the position from the corridors of the Supreme Court.
Mr. J. P. Agrawal had gone there seeking nullification of an order of the High Court of Orissa. The Supreme Court refused even to admit the case.
Who is J.P.Agrawal?
He is Jagdish Prasad Agrawal, an OAS officer illegally elevated to IAS. In disapproving his promotion to IAS, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) had expressed concern over the use of administrative machinery to suppress vital facts about punishment awarded to him for misconduct in the memorandum prepared for the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC). The CAT action, on challenge, had been endorsed by the High Court.
But Agrawal was not the only one whose promotion to IAS smacks of manipulation. We may look into the matter to have a cursory view of how corrupt have become the higher echelon of Orissa bureaucracy.
In 2002 eight officers of OAS were selected to IAS. But the most suitable officers were discarded in favor of the deficient ones.
This was challenged by Shri Aswini Kumar Das, presently the Collector of Puri and Shri Pramod Chandra Patnaik, Collector of Nuapada before the Central Administrative Tribunal in O.A. No.2/2004.
The crux of their allegations was that these Officers were promoted to the I.A.S. without evaluation of their suitability on the matrix of their complete Service Records and notwithstanding the adverse entries in their Confidential Character Rolls (C.C.R.) and the punishments imposed through disciplinary proceedings. It was specifically alleged that Shri J.P.Agrawal and Shri Satyananda Sethi had got punishment in disciplinary proceedings, but this fact was suppressed. Similarly, when there was a question mark on the integrity of one officer and such adverse entry was not counter balanced by the prescribed authority i.e. the Chief Secretary, he was also selected. Shri Balakrishna Sahu having adverse entry in the C.C.R. and having been superseded in promotion to Senior Class-I and later to Joint Secretary rank, also got selected whereas the two petitioners, Mr. Das and Mr. Patnaik, having unblemished Service Records and �Outstanding� grading for continuous five years were discarded.
Baffling it is that on consideration of the same bunch of C.C.Rs i.e. from 1996-97 to 2000-2001 Mr. Patnaik, who, having continuous Outstanding remarks therein, had superseded others in promotion to the rank of Additional Secretary, was rejected for promotion to I.A.S.whereas the superseded officers bagged the promotion.
Out of the eight officers selected to I.A.S., only three officers had outstanding CCRs for five years and the rest five had no such distinction though one of these five, Raj Kishor Jena, who got the promotion had acquired outstanding remarks only for three months. It is surprising that these five officers have superseded Das and Patnaik who have been continuously placed in outstanding grade for five years and have always been considered unblemished.
On being apprised of this, and on the basis of documented pleadings, the CAT concluded in O.A. No.1255/2003 that the punishments inflicted on Shri J.P.Agrawal did not find place in the A.C.R. folder, as a result of which the Selection Committee did not get opportunity to be aware of such blemishes against any recommended persons. Mentioning about �startling facts� that revealed in course of hearing how some of the selected Officers did not enjoy blemishless career, the CAT had underlined that the Officers to be selected to I.A.S. should be beyond suspicion like the Ceasar’s wife. And, for this, the Selection Committee should review the C.C.Rs of at least eight years instead of five. But, if an Officer is graded as �Outstanding�, his entire service career should be scanned to ensure that his categorization as �Outstanding� can never be questioned on the ground that in the past he did not enjoy blemishless service records. Therefore, the whole selection List was quashed and a review meeting was ordered for.
This order was appealed before the Orissa High Court by Shri Jagdish Prasad Agrawal in W.P. No.13445/2005 and Shri K.C.Mohapatra in W.P. No.13153/2004. A Bench consisting of the Chief Justice and Justice Madan Mohan Das upheld the above judgment of the Tribunal with a modification to the extent that the Selection Committee should see the C.C.Rs of Officers for past five years instead of eight. They relied on the judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of Shri R.K.Das Vrs. Union of India (AIR 1987 SC(593), in which it has been stated that the Committee has to categorize the members of State services on the basis of entries available in their Character Rolls and thereafter to arrange their names in the proposed List in accordance with the principles laid down in Regulation 05. This was mandated to eliminate every possible scope for discrimination through application of different standard or criteria at different times for preparing the List.
Mr. Agrawal had gone against this Order of Orissa High Court.
After refusal of the Supreme Court to interfere with the Verdict of the Orissa High Court, it has been crystal clear that when the eight OAS officers were selected to IAS in 2002, the State Secretariat had been transformed into a breeding place of favoritism and clientelism and the selection was made in stark disregard to administrative impartialism.
As I look back, P.K.Mohanty, the then Chief Secretary, Srinibas Rath, the then Development Commissioner and Arun Kumar Panda, the then R.D.C.- all from Orissa and Gurbachan Singh, Member of U.P.S.C. assisted by Union Joint Secretary S.Jagadeesham comprised the Committee.
They were the senior most members of the bureaucracy. How could they prefer evidently deficient officers to the officers who had been graded �outstanding� for continuous five years in their transparently blemish less service careers? They cannot say that they had not violated administrative acuity in order to select the unsuitable persons they selected. Now they should be asked to say as to why did they do it.
Had they gone through the list of Officers under the Zone of Consideration, Mr. Aswini K. Das and Mr. Promod Chandra Patnaik, the two most suitable officers, I am sure, would never have been discarded. But they did not do it. The Orissa officers did not help the U.P.S.C. and the Union Government in evaluating the suitability of the Officers concerned.
After the CAT verdict the State Government had known that a wrong has been done. It was the duty of the State Government to take correctional steps. But it did not act in that respect. Mohanty, relinquishing the Chief Secretary post has been awarded with the more coveted post of Chairman of Orissa Public Service Commission.
But the two most brilliant and outstanding officers are languishing in the State service cadre whereas the State Exchequer is being exploited for paying them the salary packages applicable to a cadre to which their illegal entrance has been declared null and void.
The State is under Peoples� Representatives. Hence the authority above the Chief Secretary is the Chief Minister. If he has not compelled the Chief Secretary ( P.K.Mohanty as then he was) and his team in the Committee to supersede the most suitable officers by the tainted ones, in this case, he must take steps to punish this fellow for having corrupted administration as discussed above. Steps need be taken to determine the corrupt practices resorted to by each of the members in the concerned Committees in suppressing vital facts and in sloughing over the guiding laws.
The Constitution of India has created Public Service Commissions for only one purpose. That is elimination of favoritism in selection of Union or State Service Officers.
Any violation of this purpose is an offense against the Constitution.
Hence I expect the Chief Minister to understand that it is his duty to bring every offender in the instant case to books as an example of responsible parliamentary rule, and most importantly as a deterrent to any such manipulations in future.
Source Link http://orissamatters.com/2006/08/11/crowning-corruption/
Orissa suspends IAS officer on corruption charges
Bhubaneswar, Aug 13 - The Orissa government has suspended an Indian Administrative Service - officer for allegedly having wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income, official sources said Wednesday.
Vigilance department officials raided the residence and office premises of Himansu Sekhar Samantray, managing director of the state run Orissa Lift Irrigation Corporation, July 27.
'During investigation we found he possessed cash and properties worth more than Rs.20 million - an amount he could not have earned from his job,' vigilance cell police superintendent Debadutta Patnaik said.
He has been placed under suspension after the vigilance department registered a case against him Tuesday after prima facie evidence showed his involvement in embezzlement of government money, an official of the state general administration department told IANS.
'Samantray, a 1994 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service, has a house in Bhubaneswar worth over Rs.10 million,' Patnaik said.
'We also discovered that he has two other houses in his home district Mayurbhanj, each worth about RS.2.2 million. He also has other properties, cash and gold ornaments.' He added.
Source Link | http://www.nerve.in/news:253500156416
IAS officer being probed for corruption in Himachal
“He will be summoned again in a few days,” the official said.
Ahluwalia was asked to surrender his passport to the bureau and agreed to do so by Thursday. The IAS officer’s wife Meera is also under the scanner of the vigilance team.
Meera was accused of going on foreign jaunts at the expense of a private company, which is setting up a cement plant in the hill state.
During the previous government, Ahluwalia was private secretary to the chief minister for over four years.
Source Link http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/ias-officer-being-probed-for-corruption-in-himachal_10082974.html
'He was voted the most corrupt IAS official in UP'
The retired police officer -- who has served as UP's police chief as well as the chief of the Border Security Force -- is widely known for his forthrightness. Singh added that such punitive action should be taken against corrupt bureaucrats while they are still in office.
Akhand Pratap Singh was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation for allegedly amassing wealth disproportionate to his known and legitimate sources of income.
Vijay Shankar Pandey, a 1979 batch UP cadre IAS officer who spearheaded the first ever in-house anti-corruption campaign in the country, welcomed the CBI move.
"It is a welcome move and it will send the right message to all those who think that they can get away with murder," said Pandey. "Deterrence is the only way to curb corruption in high positions. The former chief secretary's arrest will compel the corrupt to think ten times before indulging in illegitimate practices," he added.
Retired Union government secretary R C Tripathi also hailed the CBI's decision to arrest Singh. "Such a person should not be granted bail," he said.
"I only hope that this works as a deterrent for those who start indulging in corrupt practices from day one in service," observed George Joseph, a retired top bureaucrat.
A 1967 batch IAS officer, Singh earned the dubious distinction of being the "most corrupt" IAS officer in UP when an IAS Action Group, led by Pandey, undertook a unique secret ballot to elect the three most corrupt IAS officers in the state in 1997. Singh garnered the maximum number of votes.
CBI officials had carried out simultaneous raids on various premises owned by Singh and his immediate family members on March 21, 2005. Singh allegedly owns as many as 42 properties worth a whopping Rs 120 crore.
According to a CBI source, "Singh had gold-plated taps in his bungalows in various cities across the country." With the help of his son-in-law, a senior official in the Income Tax Department, Singh allegedly fudged tax returns and even forged documents to cover up his corrupt ways.
Thanks to his influence and money power, Singh managed to evade arrest for over two years, even though the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had turned down his plea for a stay against his arrest.
Source Link http://in.rediff.com/news/2007/sep/25up1.htm
DESPICABLE CORRUPTION IN THE I.A.S. AND OTHER SERVICES
This is not the first time I am writing about corruption in the Government including in the I.A.S. (Indian Administrative Service). While I have got any number of my articles on various subjects printed in various national newspapers and prestigious journals over the last four decades, I have sorely failed in getting any of my articles on corruption accepted by any newspaper or journal so far. Not that these articles had been bad but what puzzles me is whether there are any editorial policies in this matter. Of course, you see screeching headlines in the dailies everyday about someone getting caught while taking a bribe. Such news is “sensational” whereas policy discussions on corruption are perhaps considered boring and useless. There is perhaps a cynical view in the air that corruption is a tacitly accepted way of life in India and that no real reform here is possible! Remember Indira Gandhi’s justification that “corruption is a world-wide phenomenon”?
I joined the I.A.S. in 1962. Really speaking, as a good physics student in college, I wanted to do further studies at Stanford or M.I.T. My earlier adolescent ambition was to work with Walt Disney as I made good cartoons ! However, my grand-father wanted me to join the I.A.S. as he himself was a Government official. (In those days, it is said, every Tamil Brahmin who joined the I.A.S. did so because his mother wanted it !) Anyway, as a youngster, I was fascinated by Nehru, the PM. I used to skip college to catch a glimpse of him coming in an open jeep out of the gates of the Meenambakkam airport. I adored him for his lovely pink face exuding a childish charm, and for all the brave deeds and sacrifice he had done for the country. Nehru was surely an incentive for me to take up the I.A.S. exams. Before going to Mussoorie for my training I had a thrilling darshan of him during his morning public darbar. I was proud to enter the I.A.S. to serve the nation with integrity and dedication. Also I.A.S. gave you a special status and your ego gladly accepted it !
The I.C.S.officials who preceded us were not our examples. We admired their erudition and that was all. They got much fatter salaries and served the British interests before Independence . They were generally financially not corrupt as per my understanding. Many of them perhaps would have gladly accepted crates of imported whisky as gifts. The East India Company officials were a different story, and were great avatars of corruption.
When I joined service in 1962, the I.A.S. had generally a clean reputation. There was all round talk of “development” and the raising of the standards of life in rural India in particular. The political leaders had stature unlike most of them today. The Nehru era was generally unknown for corruption, and we should not bring in the odd cases to demolish Nehru. The turning point was perhaps Indira Gandhi’s regime. Corruption became the order of the day in political life and this percolated to the governmental functionaries. It has ever been a downward slope since then and the worst is being witnessed today irrespective of leaders and parties.
Four simple prescriptions are universally prescribed to curb corruption: (1) Make laws simpler (2) Make procedures transparent (3) Take away discretionary powers, and (4) Prescribe time limits to prevent delays that happen with corrupt motives. I do not think there is any governmental report that shows the progress in these areas, say in the last 15 years since our “reforms”. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Very little has been done in terms of simplification of laws. There may be a little more transparency now, especially with the RTI Act. I don’t think that discretionary powers have been handled in an integrated way. Delays are still rampant although in some specific areas time-limits are introduced. To sum up, the four prescriptions are like a scrap of paper and would seem merely theoretical in our context.
In fact, today, the “reduction of corruption” as a goal has vanished from the agendas of political parties, and also from the agendas of governmental agencies. In the present euphoria of “ India shining”, corruption has taken a very back seat if not forgotten altogether as an evil to be tackled. In a booming economy, it is presumed by everyone that money has to change hands, legally or illegally ! This is terrible ! Political leaders and civil servants are stockpiling illegal wealth from bribes, totally greed-based and not just need-based. There is no way to know if money goes to a party or a politician. As regards civil servants, they shore up their nests to last several generations. In India , we are used to thinking of the family unlike in the West where the unit in society has become rather the individual. So, our Indian babus greedily collect wealth to be of use to hordes of children and their families, grand children and their families, great grand children and their families and further future generations !
From my long tenure in government, I can say that as of today, the most criminally corrupt officials hail from the Customs Department and Income Tax Department. I was in charge of a Free Trade Zone more than two decades back. Very low officials like Appraisers and Inspectors of the Customs Department working in my office were having personally the newly fashionable Maruti cars! Today, there is a ‘prescribed rate’ for each kind of Customs procedure and every low official pockets thousands of rupees every day. At higher echelons, the monthly bribe income runs into lakhs. This day-light robbery is smoothly carried out even today like the working of an assembly line ! In the Income Tax Department, even a low official reckons only a “Peti” for compromising a corporate case. A Peti is a lakh of rupees ! The bigger officials behave like feudal lords and they are crorepathis! There are however a handful of relatively honest souls but they can do pretty little about the muck around them. They are frustrated and often jealous of the bad apples, but their consolation prize is ‘a good conscience’. Departments like Excise, Sales tax, Revenue, Police etc come further down in the pecking order. No President, no Governor, no Chief Minister or a Central Minister, no person of power and authority, is saying anything or doing anything about all this nonsense. The only thing we see is that when an aggrieved person lodges a complaint, the ACB (Anti Corruption Bureau) organizes action to catch the babu taking money, red-handed. Such complaints are few since this can lead to future harassment. Also, the confiscated cash taken as bribe goes into a “toshkhana” for custody during the court’s proceedings and the poor customer has to forget this money for some years!
I have informally sat with and interacted with officials such as Mr.Julio Rebeiro, Mr.Satish Sahney and many other men of integrity in service, and with my own inputs, I believe that perhaps the following actions alone can help reduce corruption vastly in the I.A.S. and other services:
(1) In the case of ACB catching an official red-handed, he should be simply dismissed from service under the provisions of Art. 311 (2) (b) and (c), and Art.311 (3) of the Constitution. His properties, investments and part of his cash should be temporarily attached till criminal proceedings are over. The Article should be amended if necessary to provide for quick dismissal in such cases.
Unfortunately, today, there is too much protection to government officials and they cannot be dismissed quickly even when caught red-handed. At the most he is suspended. The criminal proceedings go on for years. Till then the departmental enquiry cannot be finalized. So he will merrily get 75% of his salary regularly without doing any work.
(2) There should be a physical verification of property, investments and cash of a small percentage of officials of each grade at random every year. This will put the fear of God ( ?) in every official. The selection of officials will be done by drawing random numbers.
Today what is happening is that every official files his “annual property return” with his Department. These returns are never looked into and are simply filed. This is dead waste. Physical verification of the property mentioned in the returns at random every year will definitely curb rampant corruption.
(3) I know the names of at least a dozen super-corrupt I.A.S. officials who are now multi-crore pathis. In fact this is common knowledge to most I.A.S. officers. Do not ask for direct evidence and I cannot give any! Corruption is a clandestine affair. However, the wind has ears and news spreads unerringly. Yet, none does anything about these super-corrupt officials. They have purchased the top politicians. And it is also vice versa ! So how does one handle this matter to mete out justice to the fellows who are roaming around with total immunity?
Personally, I would find it unpleasant and imprudent to reveal these names for many reasons. I do not like to invite trouble by pointing out to another man in the existing atmosphere. I am happy to be personally free from corruption and that is all. There is a rider ! I do not mind conveying the names to the President of India provided my anonymity is maintained. I wish Mr.Kalam was still there. Anyway, if the Central Government can officially provide a mechanism like this, some honest officials will come forward with names. It is significant that in Uttar Pradesh, there is annual voting by all I.A.S. officers to name the most corrupt I.A.S. officials ! What follow-up action follows officially is not known to me. At least the black sheep are publicized, though they may be shameless and thick-skinned. The recent action against Mrs. Neera Yadav of the U.P. cadre of I.A.S. does not seem to essentially follow the voting results for corrupt I.A.S. officials !
(4) While the “marked currency notes” may lie in the toshkhana for months/years pending prosecution in cases where the ACB had done an arrest red-handed, based on a complaint, the complainant should be paid at once in cash an equal amount from the government funds. A special budget provision for this purpose should be introduced. This will remove the hesitation in filing complaints by those who do not want to see their money unnecessarily locked up for years.
There are many other suggestions, less impactful in nature, that I can enumerate but let me wind this article here.
I am only afraid that when there is no political will to reform corruption, all the above is just empty litany.
Source Link http://v-s-gopal.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/10/despicable-corruption-in-the-i-a-s-and-other-services.htm
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The once formidable steel frame is now a rotten hulk and the biggest hurdle in
Priyabrata Patnaik is one heck of a colourful IAS officer of the 1976 batch. Posted in Orissa, he is currently being interrogated by the
That’s one face of Indian bureaucracy. There is another face to it. Meet J.N. Jayashree of Karnataka, wife of IAS officer M.N. Vijaykumar, a man who has been in hiding because of several credible threats to his life. Says Jayshree, “Our family is going through a phase of extreme hardships because my husband exposed corruption amongst senior IAS officers. This is what happens to honest officers”.
Welcome to the Kafkaesque and surreal world of Indian Asphyxiated Service, the once proud steel frame of
Quite clearly, the Indian bureaucracy seems to have emerged as the single biggest obstacle to
How did the steel frame of
Is there a way out of this nightmarish scenario? There is. In 1991, Manmohan Singh transformed
Akhand Pratap Singh, former chief secretary of UP, was voted as the most corrupt IAS officer in a secret voting by UP IAS Officers Association. The movement was spearheaded by 1979 batch IAS officer Vijay Shankar Pandey. Later, Akhand was arrested by CBI. He is behind bars at present.
There were serious charges of land scam worth billions related to the Noida Development Authority. Motilal Vora, the then governor, tried to save the corrupt IAS officer and Chief Secretary Mata Prasad by keeping her files in limbo. Her career spanning 25 years had been rather controversial. Many VIPs bought tiny shops for juice, paan-beedi, et al to become eligible for Noida plots.
Rajeev Goswami, former DM of Patna, was once hailed as an icon of honesty and even rewarded by UN for his work. But when his name surfaced in a flood scam in
A public interest litigation had been filed by Senior Advocate M.P. Gupta in
Source Link –http://www.businessandeconomy.org/15052008/storyd.asp?sid=3231&pageno=1
Monday, October 20, 2008
Interesting Details about Indian Media
India Today which used to be the only national weekly which supported BJP is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.
CNN-IBN: This is 100 percent funded by Southern Baptist Church with its branches in all over the world with HQ in US.. The Church annually allocates $800 million for promotion of its channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
Times group list:
Times Of India, Mid-Day, Nav-Bharth Times, Stardust, Femina, Vijay Times, Vijaya Karnataka, Times now (24- hour news channel) and many more...
Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman. 'World Christian Council¢ does 80 percent of the Funding, and an Englishman and an Italian equally share balance 20 percent. The Italian Robertio Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
Star TV: It is run by an Australian, who is supported by St. Peters Pontifical Church Melbourne.
Hindustan Times: Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in Collaboration with Times Group.
The Hindu: English daily, started over 125 years has been recently taken over by Joshua Society, Berne , Switzerland .. N. Ram's wife is a Swiss national.
Indian Express: Divided into two groups. The Indian Express and new Indian Express (southern edition) ACTS Christian Ministries have major stake in the Indian Express and latter is still with the Indian counterpart.
Eeenadu: Still to date controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao.
Ramoji Rao is connected with film industry and owns a huge studio in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Jyothi: The Muslim party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress Minister has purchased this Telugu daily very recently.
The Statesman: It is controlled by Communist Party of India.
Kairali TV: It is controlled by Communist party of India (Marxist)
Mathrubhoomi: Leaders of Muslim League and Communist leaders have major investment.
Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle: Is owned by a Saudi Arabian Company with its chief Editor M.J. Akbar.